US successfully isolates wheat Fusarium head blight resistance gene

Wheat Fusarium head blight is a global wheat disease that causes sharp declines in crop yields and inflicts huge losses on global agricultural production every year. According to the latest issue of the journal Nature Genetics, US scientists have made a major breakthrough in cloning the resistance gene aimed at eliminating wheat Fusarium head blight. Using advanced wheat genome sequencing technology, they isolated the broadly resistant Fhb1 gene. This discovery will have broad implications not only for wheat Fusarium head blight, but also for disease resistance control in various similar host plants infected by the fungal pathogen Fusarium graminearum.

The toxins produced by Fusarium graminearum make infected crops unsuitable for human and animal consumption, and this crop disease frequently occurs in large-scale outbreaks in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and South America. Wheat Fusarium head blight has also long been a difficult problem to solve. After more than 20 years of research, Chinese and US scientists found resistance only in certain specific native Chinese crops.

This time, a research team formed by multiple universities including the University of Maryland and Washington State University successfully isolated the broadly resistant Fhb1 gene using advanced wheat genome sequencing technology. The researchers said that once the DNA source of the resistance is understood, the process of replicating the resistance gene can be carried out more quickly in the laboratory. Once the nature of the gene's action is ultimately understood, this discovery can also be used to control rot in other crops caused by Fusarium, such as gourds, tomatoes and potatoes.

In the future, the researchers plan to use Fhb1 to overcome a large number of crop diseases caused by pathogens, and after optimizing this resistance through breeding, genetic modification and genome editing technologies, transfer it into other crops susceptible to Fusarium. (Reporter Feng Weidong)